“Nowadays, there are different ways to destroy the world”: director Patricia Riggen on Viola Davis’ debut as an action star in ‘G20’
Cinema is awash with action movies featuring the president of the United States, regardless of whether or not they take on any of the ass-kicking themselves. Air Force One, White House Down, and Olympus Has Fallen are three of the most famous, but director Patricia Riggen’s G20 puts a fresh spin on the formula.
For one thing, the film features a female president forced to roll up her sleeves and wade into the thick of it when terrorists storm the titular summit and hold world leaders to ransom. Not only that, but it stars Viola Davis in the lead role, marking the EGOT-winning actor’s first time headlining her own action flick.
Davis, who also produces through her JuVee Productions banner, plays Danielle Sutton. Taking her family along to the G20 summit in South Africa, things go awry when Antony Starr’s villainous Rutledge hijacks the proceedings, forcing the military veteran, war hero, and commander-in-chief to save her husband, children, and worldwide socio-economic stability from imminent disaster.
Riggen’s latest feature, which releases on Prime Video on April 10th, has been in the works for a while. It was officially announced in November 2022 and wrapped over a year ago, with the director having to overcome a series of hurdles before her first action movie arrives to a potential audience of 200 million.
“My god, I was hired during the pandemic, so it’s been years now,” she said. “We waited for Viola’s availability after doing The Woman King because it went ahead of us. And then we finally started shooting the movie, and we got stopped by the strikes. Then we waited for months, went back and finally finished the movie, thankfully, because there were a lot of projects that were cancelled.”
“I literally finished the movie very recently, January 1st or something, like the first week of January, I was turning in the movie,” Riggen explained. “So it’s really exciting that it’s coming out so quickly. It’s been translated into 100 different languages because the movie is going to open in 250 countries at the same time. That’s very exciting, and I can’t wait to see what the world thinks.”
Outside of helming several episodes of the espionage thriller Jack Ryan, Riggen’s career has been rooted in dramas like Under the Same Moon, Girl in Progress, The 33, and Miracles from Heaven, as well as TV shows like Proven Innocent and Dopesick. However, she always wanted to try a big escapist actioner.
“I like to explore different genres, and so definitely, action was one of them,” Riggen confirmed. “And when I got the opportunity to do Jack Ryan, we didn’t have second-unit directors or anything like that. And it was pretty big. So I got to experience directing fights and explosions and all sorts of things, and just something that I really fell in love with. I’ve always watched action movies. I love them. I mean, now I want to jump into a different genre, but if another action movie comes in, I’ll take it!”
A key part of Rutledge’s plan to destabilise the world involves the use of deepfake technology and AI to create a disinformation campaign, all of which ties into a cryptocurrency heist. Those three things are contemporary issues, and Riggen always wanted to add a timely element to the plot.
“Action movies a few years ago were always about a bomb. You know, the bad guy always had a bomb, and nowadays, there are different ways to destroy the world,” she suggested. “And so it really seemed very appropriate, the deepfakes, when we were shooting. It took a while to make this movie, and suddenly, I started seeing the deepfakes of presidents online. And I’m like, ‘Oh my god, it’s actually happening.'”
As relevant as it is, there were still concerns that G20 would be past its sell-by date by the time it premiered. “I actually consulted with a deepfake specialist, and I said, ‘What’s gonna happen by the time this movie comes out? Is this gonna be obsolete because everything is moving so quickly?’ But he said, ‘Oh no, there’s three, four more years before the perfect deepfake exists.'” Chilling, but reassuring from a filmmaker’s perspective.
Even though it’s a movie with a politician in the lead role and with several supporting characters being politicians, Riggen had no intention of making a political movie. Instead, it’s about Davis’ Sutton trying to guarantee the safety and survival of her family, which was her intention from the start.
“It’s been a very conscious decision not to make the movie political,” Riggen clarified. “I think the G20, this setting, allows for a truly international movie. Imagine a place where the 20 most powerful leaders of the world are hanging together. I mean, it’s the perfect place to take the world and destroy it, but it’s never meant to be a political movie. We really set ourselves to do a popcorn movie, nothing else than that, so that people can actually forget for two hours everything that’s going on in the political world, which is crazy.”
G20 is definitely an apolitical popcorn film, but it still found the time to make some history. Davis is the first EGOT winner to play the president in a feature film, and she’s the first EGOT winner to take top billing in an action movie, which also makes it the first time a female president has been portrayed as the lead in a mainstream action picture.
“I know, and it’s incredible because there are so many action movies,” Riggen enthusiastically agreed. “First of all, that it’s a female lead already sets it apart. And it’s a Black female lead. When I was preparing a presentation on the movie at the beginning of everything, I couldn’t find images to reference because it just hadn’t been done. So it is a first. What I didn’t think about was the female US president being the lead in an action movie. But now that you’re saying it, I guess that’s a first, too!”
Collaborating with one of her generation’s finest actors was something Riggen relished about G20. The director and Davis worked closely on everything from Sutton’s character arc and personality to the stunts and set pieces that put the star through her paces as a first-time action hero.
“I worked with Viola on a lot of ideas,” Riggen elaborated. “She had concerns, she had thoughts on the character and her motivations, and I wanted to make sure that she really brought those ideas into the script. She’s really smart. She has really strong instincts as an actor for character, so she was essential in crafting Danielle Sutton and her motivations.”
Unsurprisingly, the director had nothing but the utmost praise for her “absolutely incredible” creative partner: “It’s really special to have, not just the action genre tackling. She tackles the action genre in a spectacular way, but she also injects this depth into her character that makes it really special.”
Academy Award, Bafta, Primetime Emmy, Golden Globe, Grammy, six-time Screen Actors Guild Award, and two-time Tony Award winner Viola Davis playing the president in an action movie may not be an obvious step for her to take, but it’s clear Riggen had a blast making G20 with the celebrated star.
